The impact of AI on application modernization — Retail Technology Innovation Hub

For any organisation, state-of-the-art software is a prerequisite for success. That’s why ordering custom solutions is a top priority for any aspiring business.

However, you cannot just develop a software product and rest on your laurels. As time goes on, technology advances, and many digital solutions quickly become obsolete and show poor performance.

Therefore, app modernisation is essential and should be carried out regularly. For companies, this means competitive advantage and constant growth.

Application rationalisation and modernisation: why do you need them?

Application modernisation implies updating legacy digital products to meet the latest technological advancements and current market requirements. Of course, a company can build a new app from scratch, and every so often it’s even advisable to do so.

However, if firms modernise applications, they strengthen their proven solutions that may still show decent results and don’t need to be changed completely. It’s like renovating a flat or a house. Few people would buy a new apartment if something has turned old. Most of us would simply change wallpaper, bathroom equipment, and so on.

While the definition may seem straightforward, the process itself is complex and multifaceted, both in web and custom mobile app development services. It requires a profound understanding of the existing legacy product and the latest technologies and trends in the industry.

One of the unique challenges of software modernisation is striking a balance between preserving the functionality of the legacy solution and introducing new features and capabilities that meet the growing needs of a business. This requires careful planning, testing, and implementation to ensure a smooth transition and minimise disruption to end users.

Moreover, with the rapid pace of technological advancement, application modernisation is not a one-time event but an ongoing process. Organisations must continually assess their software and infrastructure to identify areas for improvement and stay up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices in the industry.

Overall, business application modernisation is a critical process that enables organisations to keep pace with the rapidly changing business and technological landscape. By investing in modernisation, firms can improve their operational efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance the user experience, ultimately driving growth and competitive advantage.

The following figures prove that more and more businesses are striving to modernise applications to stay competitive. According to MarketsandMarkets, the application modernisation market will hit $32.8 billion by 2027. Compared to $15.2 billion in 2022, that's double the growth.

Application modernisation trends to follow in 2023

If you want to stay successful, always follow the latest trends. Information technology advances by leaps and bounds, so what seems modern today may become a legacy pretty soon. Here are several trends that shape the 2023 modernisation landscape.

● Low-code/no-code approach

This trend appeals to people who are inexperienced in programming or possess little knowledge of the subject. Gartner predicts that by 2025, 70% of new software solutions will imply low-code or no-code.

This approach is beneficial as it allows companies to introduce the necessary changes much faster and fight the shortage of experienced developers efficiently.

● Cloud native approach

By 2024, approximately 90% of digital products will be cloud native. This prediction by IDC proves that such software products are commonplace. Companies choose this approach to ensure flexibility and continuous modernisation and boost cost efficiency.

● Hybrid cloud approach

The hybrid cloud presents a compelling option for businesses that cannot afford to risk devastating security breaches, which can cause significant financial penalties and even criminal culpability for executives.

By merging the best aspects of privately owned servers and private clouds with those of the public cloud, this innovative technology offers a suitable solution to the problem. At the core of the hybrid cloud's appeal lies its employment of cutting-edge technologies such as edge computing, which allows for the processing of sensitive data locally.

● Progressive web apps

The most important advantage of PWAs is their ability to run on any device with an Internet browser. So, with this type of software, a business gets rapid processes, impeccable performance, instant updates, and enhanced accessibility.

● Customisation and data tracking

In today's digital landscape, personalisation is a crucial application modernisation trend that has gained significant traction. It is also referred to as the Internet of Behavior. It empowers companies to collect and analyse vast amounts of data, enabling them to derive actionable insights about their users and business.

By adopting this approach, businesses can gain a competitive edge and offer their clients tailored digital products that fully meet their individual needs and preferences.

● Artificial intelligence and machine learning

These are vital. We’ll touch upon them in detail in a separate subsection.

● Legacy infrastructure replatforming, refactoring, and repurchasing

As technology continues to develop at a breakneck pace, businesses must remain agile and adapt to changing circumstances to stay ahead of the curve. Three popular strategies that organisations can leverage for modernising their systems and processes are replatforming, refactoring, and repurchasing.

The first one involves upgrading all essential components of a system by leveraging cloud migration techniques while preserving the core code and system architecture.

The second one entails containerising system applications and their workloads and moving them to a serverless architecture while retaining the fundamental code. The last one entails transitioning from one-time purchases to apps that require recurring licenses.

● Containerisation

With the advent of cloud computing and the rise of microservices architecture, containerisation has become essential. Here, Kubernetes plays the most significant role. It is an open-source platform for container orchestration.

It includes numerous features (automatic load balancing, automatic scaling, self-healing, etc.), which simplify the deployment and management of containerised apps. By choosing this approach, companies ensure enhanced flexibility, scalability, and efficiency. What's more, they will release their digital products faster.

● DevOps methodology

DevOps promotes collaboration and communication between IT teams and other departments within an organization. It is particularly well suited for application modernisation software projects, as it encourages developers to work closely with stakeholders to ensure that the modernised applications meet the broader business needs of the company.

● Composable architecture

Composability is a modern architectural approach that involves redesigning a system's structure to fuse various components based on specific user requirements. This strategy is used across the entire technology stack and integrated with established business processes to create a cohesive and agile system.

● Micro front-end modernisation

This approach enables businesses to quickly modernise individual components of their software solutions and technologies, leading to faster time-to-market and increased agility. It involves leveraging existing application elements from other optimisation projects that share similar features and requirements.

● Hardware infrastructure optimisation

As technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, businesses must update their hardware infrastructure to remain competitive. This process involves transitioning from legacy systems run on outdated on-site hardware to modern cloud-based or hybrid infrastructure.

Such modernisation offers numerous benefits, including enhanced performance, scalability, faster delivery times, improved stability, and greater security.

● AI chatbots

These remarkable tools are transforming the game in the customer service industry. These modern solutions use ML and NLP to ensure individual experiences, offering clients instant and accurate responses to their queries, and can handle high volume inquiries 24/7.

They're cost-effective and scalable, improving customer satisfaction and business outcomes. By adopting AI chatbots, companies can free up human resources for more complex tasks, which in turn leads to a more productive workforce.

As you can see, today’s top application modernization trends are related to automation, containerisation, and AI. Let’s look at the AI impact in more detail.

The impact of artificial intelligence on software product modernisation

The AI impact is significant in various areas of human activity. No wonder it’s vital for business application modernization. Here are just a few examples of how it is beneficial:

● Impressive task automation

Integrating AI-powered tools in business application modernisation has brought about significant advantages that have transformed the way we approach software products.

The automation of labour intensive tasks is one of them. Assessing existing code, pinpointing areas that need to be updated, and determining the most vital aspects of an application can be accomplished fast and accurately.

● Higher precision

AI technology has expedited modernization while also providing greater accuracy and consistency. AI algorithms can process data and patterns in the code with greater precision and accuracy than humans, allowing developers to concentrate on the key elements of the application.

Using AI driven instruments, IT specialists can locate problem areas in the code and get guidance on how to improve it. This increases the success and efficiency of the entire process.

● Immense processing capacities

AI has allowed developers to have a more complete grasp of the software they are dealing with. By analyzing vast amounts of data, smart algorithms can identify patterns and relationships in the code that may not be immediately apparent to human developers.

Specialists can use this to detect software areas that need more attention or to gain insights into how the application can be enhanced in the future.

● Quick and accurate detection of errors in the code

AI enables the rapid and exact detection of errors and problems in code. Automated testing tools give developers the ability to sort through vast amounts of data and detect issues that may be difficult to spot.

Preventing errors from becoming more serious issues can save developers a lot of time and effort, leading to a more dependable software product.

AI driven app development: what exactly can be modernised?

There are various areas where smart algorithms can be applied to modernise applications, including:

● Personalised UX

This is where the impact of artificial intelligence is extremely powerful. Tailored recommendations and insights are what most users see as a must for modern software. This is especially relevant for AI-powered mobile app development.

● Enhanced performance

Smart algorithms rapidly analyse the overall performance of a digital product and detect areas requiring optimisation.

● Handling routine or repetitive tasks

Tasks like these are indispensable for programmers, but they may be tedious and lead to burnout. So, by automating what can be automated, algorithms help humans stay positive and spend their effort on more creative activities.

● Predictive analytics

Robust analytics tools help developers keep up with the latest application modernisation trends. They can consider predictions and thus update software solutions to meet evolving user demands.

● Security threat prevention

This is also an area where smart algorithms prove efficient. By considering suggestions, developers may implement robust protection mechanisms in software solutions.

● NLP capacities

IT professionals may employ NLP to enhance an app's capability to comprehend and respond to natural language queries. This will result in increased user-friendliness and accessibility.

Potential negative impacts of artificial intelligence on the entire process

While AI driven application development is highly convenient and speedy, there are potential negative outcomes to consider.

● Loss of jobs

Perhaps this is the most-discussed impact of artificial intelligence. Redundancy has been a hot issue in 2023, especially with the spread of ChatGPT. Specialists show concerns about their future as many tasks can now be carried out by smart tools.

● Overdependence on technology

The more processes one automates, the fewer skills one uses. AI-powered application development may lead to a considerable loss of knowledge.

● Ethical concerns

Specialists building software take over full responsibility for what they create. The use of smart technologies can lead to potential loss of human control over decision-making and sometimes provoke dangerous results.

● Environmental impact

As AI is widely adopted across industries, specialists working with it should consider its potential environmental impact.

Given its considerable energy and resource demands, there is a risk of increased energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. It is vitally important to recognise the potential environmental consequences and to take proactive measures to mitigate them.

● Potential bias

This is a weak point of any AI-based tool, as they are trained on specific data. If the training data is biased, this will lead to poor results.

● Privacy concerns

Smart algorithms often require access to sensitive data, which may provoke hacking or misuse.

Conclusion

Smart technology has significantly affected software modernisation. Thanks to it, IT professionals can prioritise their efforts, increase accuracy and precision, and improve testing and error detection.

These advancements have led to a more efficient AI driven app development process. It has become possible to implement changes faster and considerably enhance the quality of digital solutions.

As smart tools keep on evolving, we can anticipate even more significant benefits to arise, leading to more reliable and efficient software products.

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